Parental Involvement and Pupils’ Academic Performance in the Cape Coast Metropolis, Ghana

Abstract

Studies have shown that pupils’ academic performance is not only determined by their parents’ socio-economic status but also parental involvement in the education processes. The study, therefore, examined the socio-economic status of parents and its influence on pupils’ academic performance looking at the role of parental involvement in that relationship. With Walberg’s theory of educational productivity as a lens, the findings were based on surveys with 120 pupils selected randomly from Kwaprow Basic School and 10 and 5 interviews with parents and teachers respectively. The study found that parents’ education did not significantly affect students’ academic performance. Parents were not assisting their children in their academic activities including failure to attend Parent-Teacher Association meetings and not assisting them with homework. This was largely attributed to parental low educational level. However, with a 0.045, 0.028, 0.041 and 0.036, as p-values, the study showed that there was a statistically significant relationship between parental involvement, occupation and family size and academic performance of pupils. In order to improve students’ academic performance, the study recommended that the Parent-Teacher Associations (PTA) should intensively sensitise parents on the need to involve themselves in their wards’ education so as to aid them to perform better academically.

Family and community inputs as predictors of students overall, cognitive, affective and psychomotor learning outcomes in secondary schools

“…This implies that the support from family and parents not only helps students acquire knowledge and skills but also helps them develop physical skills, positive attitudes and behaviours towards learning. The result of this study agrees with previous research that parental guidance and involvement are also reported as factors that shape students learning and achievement in schools (Darko-Asumadu & Sika-Bright, 2021;Đurišić & Bunijevac, 2017).…”

“…These studies argue that students in smaller families receive better parental guidance than those from large families. Parental guidance and involvement are also reported factors that shape students learning and achievement in schools (Darko-Asumadu & Sika-Bright, 2021;Đurišić & Bunijevac, 2017). Consequently, many empirical studies have associated parental involvement with students' academic achievement.…”

Home Environment as a Predictor of Students’ Academic Performance: A Case of Agona Seventh-day Adventist Junior High School in Ghana

“…Again, a research conducted by Aydemir et al ( 2013) support these findings when they reported that parent's level of education is positively correlated with the amount and caliber of time spent with their children. Pupils from households with less educated parents characteristically performed worse academically than students from families with more educated parents (Darko-Asumadu & Sika-Bright, 2021).…”

“…The educational attainment of parents' children is significantly influenced by their own education levels (Kainuwa et al,, 2013). In order to maintain the status quo for their children, parents' educational backgrounds are crucial in the educational process (Darko-Asumadu & Sika-Bright, 2021). A person's educational background refers to the type of education they had.…”

Parental Engagement in Schooling: A Survey of Secondary Schools in Kwara State, Nigeria

“…In fact, parents from the initiation of a child's growth play engaging and essential tasks in his/her survival, as well as the fulfillment of social and academic needs or successes. This parenting mission over the years has become an uphill task for most parents, caregivers and guardians in the face of economic challenges or hardships, work-life imbalances, poor awareness of parenting roles in a child's educational development, cultural restrictions, especially in rural areas, as well as low socio-economic profile of some parents (Darko-Asumadu & Sika-Bright, 2021;Mante et al, 2021). Supporting this claim, observatory trends from surveys showed the predominance of derisory parenting behaviours like poor parental educational acculturation given to children, low level of parental stewardship (Muza et al, 2020), ambiguous parental cognitions and expectations, poor parental abetment, bad parenting styles/ patterns/practices and lackasidical parental internal attachment patterns (Ayeni, 2021) currently spreading across societies.…”